CanonEF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L is II USM Lens, Lens Only

The rumor mills have been churning for years now on a replacement for the Canon EF 100-400 f4.5-5.6 L IS USM which was initially released over 10 years ago. Finally Canon have come through with an update to this lens.The lens comes very well packaged from Canon with foam protecting just about everything, including the lens hood. In the box you will find the lens, tripod mount, front and back covers, a new ET-83D lens hood with a sliding door (about an inch square) that is very useful for circular polarising filters and a very nice carrying case which is very similar to the case the 70-200L f2.8 comes with.On the lens you will find switches for auto-focus/manual focus, full focus range or 3M to infinity (the lens will ignore near objects and only try to focus on objects further than 3 meters (about 10 ft) out or beyond), Image stabilization on/off and three different modes of image stabilization.The lens comes in Canons famous white L metal finish and is fully weather sealed (you do not need a filter to complete the weather sealing like you do on some other L lenses that I have). The build quality of this lens is excellent as you would expect from any of Canons L series lenses.Rather than the old, dated push/pull mechanism of the previous lens, this lens uses the normal rotational zoom with the barrel extending out from the main body. Canon has used an internal floating focusing mechanism which results in non-rotation of the front element (something you want if you are using graduated filters for example). The zoom ring is strangely at the front of the lens whilst the rear ring is focusing (this is essentially a reversal of what you normally find). Both the zoom and the focusing rings have a smooth motion to them giving you excellent control over both with a friction ring directly behind the zoom ring allowing you control and locking of the zoom.Canon have updated their Image Stabilization to the latest and greatest which according to the specs allows you an equivalent 4 stop gain. The IS really is very good however in the few tests that I have managed to complete, this is more of a 3 stop gain, not 4. You now get 3 flavors of image stabilization as well as tripod detection so the IS doesn't have conniptions by the lack of movement anymore (a great feature if, like me, you sometimes forget to turn IS off when you mount the lens on a tripod). The front element has a new ASC (Air Sphere Coating) which is supposed to reduce backlit flaring and ghosting whilst the fluorine coatings on both the front element rear lens surfaces is meant to help reduce smears and fingerprints.The lens also features an upgraded USM ring-type drive which results in extremely fast and virtually silent auto focus operations. You can manually focus the lens in auto-focus mode and sometimes this helps when going from near focus at full focal length to far focus. There can be little focus hunting when you do this.So how good are the optics? The center of the lens is tack sharp, in fact the lens as a whole is extremely sharp but there is a little fall off towards the edges, and by a little I mean a very little. The peak lens performance occurs seems to be around 190-220mm with the weakest spot not surprisingly being at the full 400mm but even at 400mm this lens is very sharp. There is slight vignetting the further you zoom out, again nothing to be worried about and there is virtually no chromatic aberrations (color shadows/fringing at image borders).You will not find a creamy smooth bokeh like you find on a f2.8 prime on this lens, that is to be expected but it is better than the original 100-400L and is generally very good. If you are a pixel peeper you will find a slight halo around the out of focus discs but you have to zoom quite far in on your image for it to be noticeable.Pros :Image SharpnessImage StabilizationFlexibility of the lensUSM focusing is very fast and silentCons :Bokeh isn't as creamy smooth as other L prime lenses but still very good.The image quality of this lens is outstanding and the build quality superb. The focal range of 100-400mm (160-640mm on an APS-C camera) gives you more options than say the 70-200mm especially for wildlife and sporting events. Did I mention the tack sharp image quality? It really is so good that I'm seriously considering whether I need to carry both this lens and the 70-200mm f2.8L in my bag, which gets to heavy with both lenses, or whether I can just leave the 70-200mm at home unless I know I am going to need its lower settings. canon have done a wonderful job with this lens and it is a significant improvement over the mk I.A couple of other things worth mentioning. This lens does work with both the Canon 1.4x and 2.0x TCs and also the Kenko 1.4x Pro 300 TC with full autofocus. It also works with the MetaBones III adapter with full autofocus if you are thinking of using this lens on a Sony A7 or A7R. When used in conjunction with the MetaBones III adapter the autofocus does take a lot more time to lock in and you will notice some slight hunting but combined with the A7/R sensor it creates some sensational images.

This first section reviews the first lens I received which turned out to be defective. Please check below the line where I speak about the replacement lens.I hate to be writing this. I have waited three years saving up for this updated lens. In the meantime I have been using a Canon 70-300L which has performed wonderfully.First, when it works, the lens takes absolutely gorgeous pictures. The colors even seem to be better than any of my other lenses.I pre-ordered the 100-400 II lens and received it one week ago. I have taken it out twice mounted on a Canon 7D generation 1. The first time, after taking several shots, I switched it to the 3m - Infinity range setting. After one successful shot, I started getting Error 01's, which is a lens to camera communication problem. When I switched the range setting back to Full, it worked again without producing the error.The advice given for this error was to clean the lens contacts which I did. The lens now worked in both the Full and 3m - Infinity range settings. Problem solved, I thought.Today, I took the lens out a second time, again mounted on the 7D. I took perhaps 50 successful shots. Then I pointed it almost straight up for a shot of a Bald Eagles' nest. Boom! Error 01.This time, cleaning the contacts has not solve the problem. I even tried a solution posted online: shooting without a lens, with the lens half mounted, then again fully mounted. No luck. The lens now fails in all range, focus and stabilizer settings. After one week and two outings, this brand new 100-400 II lens seems to be toast.The 7D works fine with the Canon 70-300L, the new Sigma 18-200 and the Canon EFS 15-85. The problem is not with the camera. An internet search reveals this was also an ongoing problem with the old 100-400L.I really wanted to love this lens. I still want to. If I can get this Error 01 problem solved, I'll be back to update this review and give it the rating it should have.UPDATE 12/27/14: Cleaning the contacts with solvent did not work the second time. I tried using the eraser end of a LensPen. I am happy to say this got it working again. It remains to be seen if this is a permanent fix or if it will keep failing.UPDATE 12/28/14: Got it working yesterday. Today, getting ready to take it out, I get Err 01's again. All of my other lenses work fine. This one is seriously flawed. It's a $2,200 paperweight. I am returning this lens to Amazon for replacement.UPDATE 12/29/14: Five stars to Amazon for how they are handling return and replacement of the lens. They provided a prepaid shipping label for the return, and sending a replacement with one-day shipping.---------------------------------------------------UPDATE 1/6/15: I am back to revise my review after receiving the replacement lens. Again, I can't praise Amazon more highly in how they handled the return and replacement. It took just one week to receive the new lens which arrived yesterday.Today, I took it out, again mounted on the first gen 7D. I am delighted to report that I took over 200 shots at three different locations without receiving a single error code. The lens performed flawlessly in both range settings.I am absolutely amazed at the photos I am getting with this lens. I always thought the 70-300L was a great lens. This new 100-400L is an order of magnitude better based on the shots I am getting with it. I am not an experienced photographer, but using this lens, I might be able to fool a few people. I am taking my best pictures ever with this lens.With this lens, I am lugging around an additional 18 ounces compared to the 70-300L. The stock Canon instrument-of-torture neck strap won't do at all. I have been using an OP/TECH 1501372 Pro Loop Strap for Camera Equipment (Black) and I find it quite comfortable with this lens.For me, the 100-400L II really is a five-star lens. This is the review I wanted to give it.